A/N Yes next chapter everyone, whats so great about this one? We have now officially broken the 200,000 word limit at disk 2. In reality I thought this would be shorter and not as popular, but 200,00 words and over 200 reviews is pretty decent if I do say so myself.

I really don't have any news but i have to thank my beta reader saria19, I swear if it was anyone else i wouldn't be improving in my writing as well as with her reading this.

enjoy!

Ch 33

The moment I was fully conscious I felt safe. I was surrounded by warmth and possibly the comfiest blanket in the world. I didn't feel the sting of frost on my fingertips anymore as well as not having a stuffy nose so by some stroke of luck I didn't catch a cold.

"Oh good, you're awake." I opened my eyes to see a wood ceiling. Sitting up I saw Nanaki off to the side, keeping his single eye on me.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked.

"Yes, Cloud and Tifa were here first. Then Cait and Aeris, then Barret and I, Vincent arrived later with Cid after you made that signal. Though you have been sleeping for a few hours now." Wow, that isn't as bad as I thought it would be, and only a few hours? I must be getting tougher if I can sleep that kind of crap off. I got up and stretched.

"How about Yuffie, she alright?"

"ACHOO!" A loud sneeze erupted before Nanaki could answer. I got up and went into the next room. Lo and behold there she was, under three blankets, with a thermometer, and her feet in a tub of warm water while she was sitting on the bed getting medicine from Tifa.

"Yo." I said, both looking back at me. It was a little funny to see Yuffie in such a state but laughing would not be the appropriate thing to do. "I see you're doing better."

"Not much, I'm still cold." Yuffie said.

"Good thing you got here when you did. I don't know what would have happened if either of you froze to death." Tifa added.

"So what's the plan?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Cloud is collecting gear from the owner of this cabin."

"Gear?" I don't remember him giving us anything back in the game, am I missing something?

"We have to climb up the mountain, so he's giving us some ice climbing supplies so we can get up there." Oh okay, thank god he is willing to help us. I don't want to even think about having to climb up ice with my bare hands.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but he doesn't have enough for all of us." Tifa said, somehow reading my mind. I slumped a bit.

"I call having spiky shoes." Yuffie laughed a little and Tifa smiled. I waved and headed upstairs to see Barret now sporting a very large jacket.

"So your burly ass is getting cold now?" I smiled. He chuckled a little before turning around.

"I ain't the one who collapsed right in front of the cabin." Barret said with a smug look on his face.

"I'll admit I'm no superman, but I got through that snow field like a real bad ass."

"Who's superman?"

"Not important, what is though, do you have another jacket? I am not about to risk this cold in what I have now." Lucky for me there was one in my size, however I was stuck with my pants so I had to deal with my legs being cold.

"It's still going to suck we have to climb the ice, it's going to take a long ass time to set everything up and have people follow." I ranted.

"Not at all." I turned to see a new face. He was an older looking man, around fifty or so, but he had a sort of youth in his face. Sure he had gray hair, but contrary to whom I've seen in the cabin, he was only wearing a light leather jacket and pants.

"I'm Holzoff, I own this cabin." That was his name; he's the guy that saved us if we collapse.

"So you helped my friend and I?" I asked.

"Actually the blond haired man and raven haired woman helped you. They heard the burst of flames and rushed out to see what was happening." Oh, guess Nanaki wasn't kidding when everyone else got here.

"Anyways I have lived here for over twenty years. I have scaled this mountain more times than I can count. There are more than a few secure places to attach the rope I gave your leader, so there is little chance even beginners like you will have to worry about falling." Well that's good to know.

"I've already given him the precautions about checking your route since the ice and snow cover it up, and to rest if you need to. Exhaustion will only hamper your progress and cause errors as you climb." So know hammering the square button to warm ourselves up? Damn, I could have used that tidbit.

"This guy's been climbin twenty years Nate; make sure you listen like everyone else." Barret said, trying to annoy me but failing.

"Actually I've been climbing for thirty; I practiced in one of the towns." Holzoff said.

"So you're from Icicle Inn?" I asked, remembering the house that Yuffie raided the map from was his wife's.

"Yes, but I did my first climbs at Modeoheim." That surprised me. I hadn't heard of Modeoheim in a long time. If I remember correctly, Zack had killed Angeal there. But it was never clear what happened afterwards.

"I've never heard of it." Barret said.

"Not many have. It's an old Mako extraction site almost surrounded by mountains of ice. When it was abandoned, myself and others would go to the town to get experience climbing the smaller hills before tackling the Great Glacier, and eventually Gaia's Cliff."

"I heard a long time ago monsters invaded the place and Shinra was sent in to exterminate them." I recalled. Modeoheim was never mentioned again after Crisis Core so something must have happened to it.

"Yes, I did too. But it was cleared out quite some time ago. But snowboarding has become popular, so I don't think anyone goes there anymore." Huh, you learn something new every day. The old man walked out saying he was going to give Cloud more instructions. Lucky for me he happened to have a pair of ice climbing boots in my size so I packed them. He said he didn't have any ice picks for me to climb with so I opted to use Fusion to stab into the ice.

"You know I've been thinkin." I looked at Barret looking out the large window. "Seein a place like this, makes you realize how awesome nature is. But if anyone told me to live here I'd tell them to... you know."

"Shove it? Yeah I can see that." I agreed.

"I tell you one thing though, if I did have to live here I'd change things around and make them better...i guess the total opposite of this would be... Midgar. When you think of it that way, Shinra don't seem so bad... wait... What the hell am I saying? Shinra ain't bad? BAHHHH!" He shook his head, I just laughed.

"Colds getting to ya dude. But I don't know, I like to think this place and Midgar are more alike than different." He raised his eyebrow.

"Both are cold in their own rights, barren of any good life, only the powerful really can live while the weak are slowly dying off. You can compare and contrast all you like. In the end it really doesn't matter. We can't admire the scenery forever."

"I guess." Barret walked off. I explored more of the cabin seeing Cid sporting more appropriate winter clothes and Yuffie finally getting pants like Tifa. I thought we would be low on gil but Holzoff said he had an excess in case he needed to pick travelers up. Lucky for us no one else was coming through here.

"We might want to start now everyone." We had culminated outside now; making sure everything was ready before we started. "This is secret info, but Rufus is coming this way as well."

"What? Why the hell would he come here himself?" Barret asked.

"Won't it take him a long time? Unless he was already in the continent it would take days by helicopter." Aeris questioned.

"He's taking the Highwind here." Cait said.

"The little bastards taking my plane?" Cid yelled.

"Then we'll have to move now. I assume the plane is fast so he'll be here in no time." Cloud said. Everyone started moving out. When we got to the bottom of the cliff and started climbing it was actually easier than expected. Cloud went up first to set up the safety rope and threw down a flare when he was at the top. Barret carried Nanaki and Cait while I, Tifa, and Yuffie went up. The winds were, if possible, more brutal than the snow fields, making everyone swung when you were trying to move up. Fusion really helped.

"Is everyone good? Check if you lost anything." Cloud asked when we all reached the top. If it weren't for the wind I would have had fun actually. I could get use to rock and ice climbing. While I checked my equipment I noticed my Fire materia was glowing abnormally.

"Hey Cloud, is something wrong with this?" I pointed. He walked up and examined my gauntlets, taking the fire materia out. I looked at the palm of his hand when my materia had started to split and morph until two were in his hand. But I noticed one had the regular flame on the inside while the other looked like a solid red center.

"You mastered your fire, that's good. We have an extra materia." So that's how materia split, kinda like cell division. Pretty cool. After getting back my mastered fire we went inside our first cavern. What was surprising was the unnatural amount of light in the cave, it was very well lit.

"It's like the Mythril mines," Tifa said off offhandedly.

"Yep, buncha sparkles and monsters. A great combination, what is so bad about it?" Barret said sarcastically. It was beautiful don't get me wrong, this was the first time I had ever been in a giant ice cavern and it looked gorgeous. But with the looming threat of monsters it was short lived. The group continued to go through the caverns and we only got the occasional Materia Keeper wanna be monsters and evil, yellow penguins. I was really happy when we found the ribbon though. I didn't get it but hey now Nanaki is immune to most status ailments.

"We have to turn around." Cloud said when we reached what appeared to be a dead end.

"It looks like a path is behind the ice. You don't suppose you can break it with your sword?" Nanaki asked. Cloud he shook his head. Even though we were supposed to make the ice break with a boulder, I don't want to waste time. Pushing myself to the front of the group I bent down to the base of the ice. I concentrated on my materia but did something different. I cast a third level fire, but I compressed it as much as I could until it was a blue flame on my index finger. I placed my hand at the bottom of the ice and started to basically blow torch the chunk. Sure enough, the bottom started melting. I made sure to get the ice cut to half before I stopped. I got Cloud to come up and swing his buster sword at the ice. It didn't cut, but the ice was knocked back, clearing our path.

"I love materia." I heard Yuffie say.

"Same here Yuffie." I agreed. She smiled while we continued our way. The group went up another cliff and into another ice cave. This one was much larger and had two exits, but one was behind a pool of ice water that no one really wanted to attempt a jump over. So we took the other route which led outside into the wind that was now bearable.

"I don't get why that Sephiroth wants to go all the way up here. What the fuck is so good about this place?" Cid said.

"I have to agree. I don't see any significant use for this place, or what it has to do with Sephiroth casting Meteor." Nanaki said.

"Maybe it has something to do with being near the top of the world." the rest of the group looked at Barret. "Hey I'm just spit ballin here."

"Whatever the reason we can discuss it later. We have company." Cloud said, brandishing his sword. No a moment later a giant green mass of vines with large sharp teeth around the corner.

"What is a Malboro doing in this cold?" Nanaki asked, getting into attack position. No one was able to answer when the monster decided to start off with its trump card attack.

It took one breath and suddenly spewed out a green miasma at the group. It wasn't a slow spread either. It was a concentrated burst of air that hit most of the group, including myself. I tried to hold my breath but the sting on my skin made me yell out and inhale. I felt the effects immediately.

My skin had quickly developed green patches of moist skin. I was drowsy, one second my eyes showed the Malboro and the next they would black out. I saw the thing looked taller so I was shorter than normal. And to top it all off, I couldn't hear myself even think. The silence spell kicking in.

From what I could gather with my limited senses, Cloud seemed okay, smart enough to get out of the way. Tifa I had to guess was one of the two actual frogs in the snow, along with Aeris. I would have freaked out if it weren't for being hit by a tentacle on the ground. I think Vincent and Cid were unharmed; they were the furthest back in the group. Barret looked smaller now, about Cloud's height, but still fighting. Cait and Nanaki were fighting the plant with no adverse effects on them what so ever. Before I could see Yuffie I heard her cast an Esuna spell on one frog which then turned into a weak looking Tifa.

Not wanting to wait to take another hit I got up and ran straight. I didn't trust my sense of direction so I went along the snow path brandishing both of my swords. Getting one glimpse of the monster I was charging at I jumped and stabbed both swords into the creature. Lucky for me, I got inside its mouth.

The Malboro thrashed around and lashed at my body as it tried to get the swords out of it. But I didn't go for a kill shot. Being a distraction I saw Cloud cut a bushel of tentacles as Barret and Vincent shot at the thing from a distance. Soon enough I felt the monster stop its frenzy and die. I sat still until I felt myself get better as Yuffie cast an Esuna spell. My body was finally doing what I wanted it to do.

"It's good we killed it fast, any more time and you would have been in trouble." Vincent said.

"That bad breath is a nasty attack." Barret said.

"You tell me." I said getting up. Yuffie came up looking over my skin where the amphibian parts were. "See anything you like?" She huffed and took a step back.

"No, it's that that bad breath only hurt you with the bare minimum of all those status ailments. It's like that time in Corel. Status ailments need to take more time on you."

"That's kind of weird, isn't it?" Tifa chipped in. I shrugged.

"I really don't know. I rarely get hit with them so I can't tell." I said.

"For whatever reason, your resilience helped us win. I say we keep going so we don't have a reenactment." Aeris said. We continued up the icy path until we entered a new part of the cavern with multiple giant icicles.

"Well hell, a dead end." Cid said. Cloud looked over the edge though before looking at me.

"Nate, can you fire a few spells at the top of those icicles. They might be big enough to help us with the other exit." Nodding I shot a few lower lever spells just to get the ice falling. I still remember when the game made me battle the giant icicles. Really ridiculous actually now that I think about it. Some of those battles were completely meaningless. Amidst my thoughts Cloud had jumped off the ledge. This area wasn't so far up from the main room. Maybe one story, a story and a half. It was easy for everyone to jump down really. After nabbing the speed source, we all jumped across the ice blocks and out into the cold again. We had to use up most of what was left of our safety rope before we got to the top. However when we entered we heard a very loud thud in the next room.

"Weapons ready, start defensive spells." Cloud said. Sure enough I felt the extra protection of barrier and magic barrier along with the extra hype from a haste spell. Entering the next room we were greeted by the sight of a body in a black cloak being thrown past us. One last groan was heard before the person died. The amount of blood on it gave away he was nearly smashed to death before being thrown.

"Great... a dragon." Looking down the ice hall we could see what Cloud saw. A large two headed dragon, sitting in the icy room, surrounded by the bodies of black cloaked people. All of them currently dead.

"It seems we can't pass freely." Vincent noted.

"Let's take it down." Barret cocked his gun arm. Everyone ran into the large room and started to surround the boss. The dragon noticed this and decided to open the bat with both of its heads spitting out their respective elements and making a 360 degree turn effectively making everyone duck into cover.

"It uses ice and fire, use the opposite element on the other," Nanaki yelled. Nodding, I let loose a level three fire spell. It was exactly what I remembered from the game, large, spherical, and burning hot even in my direction explosion. Needless to say the ice dragon head roared when it was in the center of the explosion. My excitement was short lived when the second head decided a breath of fire was a good retaliation. I ran as fast as I could behind the thickest piece of ice I could find and held my breath as the dragon unleashed its fury. By the end of the attack I was sweating buckets with only a third of an ice boulder between me and the dragon.

Cloud had attacked it while its attention was on me, however the ice head had sobered up and made Cloud jump back when he was being hit by a spray of ice shards. Cid had attacked its tail with his new javelin but he was swiped over to me where I ran over to him and pulled us both behind another ice boulder to avoid the red head's fire attack.

"That fucking skin makes my spear useless." He said.

"How the hell are we going to get past it then?" I look over to see Cid pull out his smokes and actually use the flames from the fire attack overhead to light it before he took a breath.

"Did you just do that? No fucking way? No one does awesome shit like that in the middle of battle!" I yelled at him.

"Time and place kid. I think better with a cig. You go right and I go left. Use some of that magic." He patted my shoulder before forcing me out of one side of the boulder and him sprinting out of the other. I pulled out both Fusion and my fake Masamune and channeled my lightning materia into both. Man, I should name my Masamune. This is a little awkward thinking of it as a fake all of the time.

"Nate move!" I ran when a dragon claw came at me. It missed and stabbed into the ice. Okay no non-fighting thoughts right now. Using the delay I rounded both swords around my body before twisting and using my spin's momentum to slash the arm. The electrical cuts went about halfway through the arm before it was pulled back.

Nanaki and Barret got the idea to attack the dragon's tail with the red canine using a Sled Fang to bite into it while Barret shot at the back of the heads. The planned worked for the most part. The dragon started to flail in pain while Vincent and Tifa kept the heads distracted. But the dragon decided the best way to avoid this was to jump and smash into the ground. The entire room shook as the ice below the boss burst with large cracks, knocking everyone off balance and throwing Nanaki off of its tail.

But the attack caused most of the stalagmites to fall from the ceiling. I threw a fire spell into the air to melt most of the ice but the dragon swiped its tail and knocked me back. Aeris came up and healed me while Vincent jumped back, a particularly nasty deathblow attack from him making the dragon head attack him with both of its attacks. Thinking one of my old strategies would work; I put Fusion away and readied my other sword. I channeled my lightning spell through it and ran at the boss. When I was close to its belly, I took a batters position and swung Masamune.

But apparently the scales were tougher than the Red dragon. The sword got underneath some skin but barely caused any bleeding, the dragon soon swiped at me with its claws but I rolled out of the way. I decided to try one of my newest materias since I was running out of options. I pulled out my comet and started focusing. When I was done I looked around to see that nothing happened.

"What the hell! Why didn't it cast!" I yelled. Aeris pointed above me. Looking I saw a vortex not dissimilar to what summons came from. Suddenly multiple flaming rocks rained down on the dragon boss. The impact actually piercing into the dragons hide. But the boss still wouldn't go down. A hail of meteors and it kept everyone at bay still.

"Those two heads let it cover its sides. I have no idea how to get around the thing." Cloud came up, resting for a few seconds before we all moved away from another twin elemental breath attack.

"We need a distraction. Something to keep one or both occupied while everyone else focuses on one head to weaken it." Cloud added.

"I can provide one." looking over I saw Vincent with his headband already off.

"Vince I don't know. Your Galian beast uses fire attacks, and your Death Gigas is too slow." Cloud said. Vincent stepped forward anyways.

"I believe I am strong enough to hold this one at bay, but for your own safety please, keep away." Vincent soon fell to his knees and his cloak morphed around him, his body changing shape and size for another one of his transformations. This time though he started chuckling. As his body changed it soon came to a full blown nonstop laugh, as if he couldn't control himself. His cloak started to shrink and became pale until only what looked like a strait jacket with its sleeves torn was on the now twice as large being. His hands both now had large metal gloves; in one of them was an extremely large chainsaw.

His face had somehow grown a mask over it, metal with small breathing holes, much like a hockey mask. His steps made loud thuds as his feet were now covered with large boots. As the transformation went on the laughter never ceased. Only when Vincent was finished did it die down. The new creature's heavy breathing the only indication it was alive.

"I'M FREE! AHAHAHAHAHAH!" Hellmasker yelled, the berserk like laughter somehow louder than before.

"I FINALLY GET TO PLAY!" He took his weapon and revved it up. The sharp, mechanical chains rotated loudly, almost deafening. His eyes having a horrible glint in them, looking at the boss that finally noticed him.

"I ALWAYS WANTED TO TRY DRAGON FLESH!" Hellmasker ran up to the dragon with no fear. His chainsaw high and his ever present laugh continuing. The dragon snorted before using its fire head to breathe in then let out a flamethrower right into him. But Hellmasker emerged unharmed and took a swing at the dragon's snout. The saw somehow cut the tough skinned monster and continued to tear until the pain of the surprise attack was registered and the dragon slapped him away into an ice wall. A very audible crack was made when Hellmasker impacted and landed on his head.

"Vincent!" Aeris yelled. She tried to run but I held onto her. "Let go, he needs help before he-"

"We need to attack the dragon! It will take more to kill him." As if to prove my point the same evil laughter was heard. We all looked at the large body slowly crack its bones back into place and stand straight. One thing wrong though was his head. In his smash and resulting crash from the fall, it had twisted until it was bent nearly ninety degrees.

"YOU HAVE GUTS..." He took his hands and twisted his head back into place, in the opposite direction. Showing everyone his head rotated a full 360 degrees before finally setting normally back on his body. Hellmasker cracked it once before grabbing his saw and starting it up again.

"I LIKE THAT IN A VICTIM! HAHAHAHAH!" Shaking myself away from the spectacle I decided to launch a fire spell at the unsuspecting ice dragon head. The spell hit home and caused the dragon head to scream in pain. The fire head would have retaliated but Hellmasker had charged again, keeping it busy.

"Alright, attack everyone!" Cloud ordered. Barret and Nanaki kept at the tail now with Cloud. I was near Yuffie who threw her shuriken at the ice beast's head before it blew a breath at her. I cast a fire spell so only mist passed me by, but the ice shards liquefied when she was hit.

"Thanks for the ring!" She said happily. She caught her weapon and threw again. I had forgotten she still had the ice ring on. I'll probably never get it back but I guess that it's okay.

The ice dragon head had launched forward to eat me, but I wasn't completely lost in my thoughts. Jumping back I prepped my gravity materia and focused over the dragon's head, multiple black orbs now floating above it.

"Press!" The orbs exploded and suddenly bared down on the dragon's head, causing the body to balance itself at the sudden lopsidedness. The ice head struggled but I kept fueling the spell, making sure the gravitational pull was still on.

Taking advantage of my attack. Tifa ran up to the ice head. What surprised me was when she had cast a fire spell and lit her Dragon claw glove. Pulling back she threw her punch, hitting the dragon in its eye, making it struggle more. Tifa backed away, tired from using the spell much like I would have. Barret soon came up and prepped himself.

"Yo Tif, let me show you how to punch." Looking I saw Barret circle around the dragon, pressing something on his gun arm. Slowly the gun started letting off steam and pulsating some energy. Barret charged the dragon's other eye. When he hit, the gun arm had exploded in an explosion of metal and energy. The ice head finally let out its last breath when Barret pulled out his now exploded gun arm.

"Cait you said it wouldn't explode!" He yelled.

"I said it had a small chance of hurting you. Not that it wouldn't explode." The cat said as he shouted at the fire dragon head.

"You're lucky I got that new gun!" Barret reached behind him and put on his new gun. The Microlaser I think it was.

"Barret what was that?" Aeris asked. Currently putting on another layer of protection after the first spell wore off.

"Cait rigged a Mako battery into my gun. Gives it more power. I call it the Hammer Blow." Wait he made that limit break? I thought it couldn't kill bosses... well I guess that wouldn't be realistic, it can do damage but it has a heavy cost.

"I WILL MAKE YOU FEEL TERROR BEAST!" I look over to see Hellmasker breath out a cloud of mist at the monster. I doubted it would work until the dragon actually started to... whimper. It sounded as if it was in horrible pain but it just stood there in a daze.

"YES! LET YOUR FEAR GROW! LET THE NIGHTMARES CLAIM YOU! FEEL TRUE TERROR! HAHAHAHA!" The dragon stumbled around. The red head was already wounded enough by Hellmasker's ceaseless charges. I held onto Fusion and began channeling an Air Slash, next to me I saw Cloud's buster sword start to glow and him heaving it behind his back. I smiled a little at my idea when Cloud unleashed his Blade Beam when I flipped Fusion horizontally and yelled out.

"Cross Cleave!" The two shock wave attacks made exactly that and cut through the dragon's weak and almost scale-less neck. The boss finally fell down into the ground. I fell to the ground and caught my breath.

"Is everyone alright?" Cloud yelled. A unanimous yes and grunts was heard. The only one not to respond was Hellmasker who simply stood near the dragon's dead body, covered in the blood from our attacks.

"Vincent... you still good dude?" I asked. Hellmasker's head turned and looked at me, the glint still in his eye.

"STay...AwAy..." I heard a voice say, underlying Hellmasker's. The giant lunatic fell to its knees as it started to slim down. Muscle getting smaller, red cloak becoming more alive until finally Vincent was back with us, breathing harder than his last transformations. I went up right away, took his arm and placed it on my shoulder. The group was still hesitant from the transformation.

"I... may have... overestimated... myself." Vincent heaved out. I guess the stronger the monster he turns into, the harder it is for him to control. Thank god he was able to make himself focus on the dragon. I really didn't want to fight a man who thrives on others fear and pain wanting my blood. All he needed now was a scythe and to yell out Jashin-sama, that would have crept me out even more.

"We'll set up tents in the room we were in before. We shouldn't continue exhausted like this." No one argued so we all followed suit.

"Damn Darkness, you're one evil motherfucker you know?" Cid said. Vincent didn't respond, he was way too out of it.

"At least it helped. Now we can get up tomorrow morning all fresh to kill Sephiroth. I know I need the rest." I was beat as well. In fact I don't think anyone here was feeling all that well.

"So tomorrow's D-day?" Yuffie asked.

"There isn't any other place he can really run. I would assume as much." Nanaki said.

"But why come all the way out here?" Cait pondered out loud.

"He's been leading us the entire time. He could want a final showdown. So we can't be surprised by anything. We'll rest up, prepare all of our items, and then head out. Cait, when will Rufus arrive?" Cloud said.

"It will be sometime tomorrow, but if we head out early we could finish all of this before he gets here."

"Alright then. Heal up and start setting up camp." Cloud ordered.

It's a good idea to rest now. Tomorrow is when everything goes fucking ballistic. I had another plan to keep Sephiroth from summoning Meteor. It isn't half-assed either, I thought about what I need to do to make sure things go exactly as planned. I remember this place well since it was a major point of plot development in the game. It might make me look bad; hell the whole group could hate me. But I am willing to look like the bad guy, as long as it stops Sephiroth.